Author
Hurley, Chris
Year
1994
Title
The Australian ('Series') System: An Exposition
Publication
Details
The Records Continuum: Ian Maclean and Australian Archives First Fifty Years.
Sue McKemmish and Michael Piggott(eds).
This version made available on Records Continuum Research Group Website
•
From 1998 to 2009 at
http://www.sims.monash.edu.au/research/rcrg/publications/chtrc1.html
•
From 2009 to 2015 at
http://www.infotech.monash.edu.au/research/groups/rcrg/publications/chtrc
1.html
Copyright
This publication is protected by copyright. Copyright in the publication remains with the author. The
Monash University Research Repository has a non-exclusive licence to publish and communicate
this publication online.
2/13/2015
The Australian ('Series') System: An Exposition (Information Technology)
Monash University > InfoTech > Research > Groups > Rcrg > Publications
The Australian ('Series') System: An Exposition
Chris Hurley has a B.A. (Hons) in History (U. of Sydney) and post-graduate diplomas in Education (U. of
Sydney), Librarianship (U. of N.S.W.), and Archives (U. of London). He began working in archives in 1971 at the
Australian Archives where he was involved at various times in arrangement and description, transfer and
disposal, and in the development of the 1983 Archives Act. From 1981 to 1990, he was Keeper of Public
Records for the State of Victoria where he is currently Chief Archivist. He has served four terms on the Council of
the Australian Society of Archivists and has convened both the A.C.T. and Victorian Branches of the Society. He
is currently Convener of the ASA's Education Committee. 7
Abstract
In the 1950s and 1960s, the then Commonwealth Archives Office (now Australian Archives) systematised its
approach to archival documentation through separation of data about record-keeping and context. This
method, in one form or another, has now been adopted in numerous other archives. The pioneering accounts
of the system's chief expositor, Peter Scott, necessarily based a theoretical exposition on examples from
Australian Archives itself, since no other applications were available. How the system is applied varies,
however, from archives to archives. Some underlying aspects, not always well recognised or articulated in
reports of its use, remain constant. This chapter attempts to isolate and describe these characteristic features
and to build them into a conceptual model of the system applicable to all its variations.
By Chris Hurley
In the broadest sense [Peter Scott] achieved two things. First he provided the final building block in
progress towards 'integrated current and .... intermediate' records management .... Secondly .... the
solution to our long-standing problem of arranging and describing the archives produced under the
increasingly fluid administrative arrangements of the Government .... Peter would .... agree that his
'flash of genius' occurred in the climate of a long-standing pursuit of 'ideal' classificatory techniques for
records .... which Keith Penny and I had been pursuing .... ever since the Schellenberg seminars in
1954 .... I do not know how long Peter savoured his insight before explaining it to Keith Penny, or how
long then elapsed before Keith burst through my office door; but on hearing the proposition, not a
minute elapsed before I stated 'that's it' or words to that effect, and from then on, whatever the
problems that still lay ahead that was it. As Keith and I both recognized, this approach preserved the
essence of the two basic principles of provenance and respect for original order, but varied the
priorities of use for 'classificatory' purposes ....1
The story of the search for a satisfactory way of documenting records which culminated in Maclean's triumphant
cry is still buried in the files of Australian Archives. I will not attempt to tell that story - still less to rehearse or update
the arguments, already expounded by Scott and others, for preferring the technique.
Recent (increasingly complimentary) attention from overseas has been mingled with what appear to be
misapprehensions about the way the technique is applied. It has been represented to us that this is because too
little has been published by Australians about the Australian system It is clear .... that those in North America working on descriptive standards, and especially on defining
the archival fonds as a replacement for the cumbersome record group, have certain misconceptions
about Scott's legacy and the Australian system. The series system may be its name, but the notion
that Australian descriptive practice is unduly minimalist in ignoring the wider context of creation
'above' the series level, or inter-series, is simply wrong. 2
Scott described the Australian system as it was developed and applied within the Australian Archives. I shall here
present a conceptual model3 independent of (but, I hope, comprehending) varying applications of the system
currently in use.
Background : The Search for an 'Ideal' Classificatory Technique
The Australian system (the system) cannot simply be understood, however, as just another way of describing
records. For its practitioners, it is part and parcel of, and in important ways an emanation from, an approach to
(philosophy of) archives. Since the time when the profession here was being, in effect, invented following World
http://www.infotech.monash.edu.au/research/groups/rcrg/publications/chtrc1.html
1/16
2/13/2015
The Australian ('Series') System: An Exposition (Information Technology)
War II, there has been widespread (though not universal) adherence to the proposition that .... archival science provides the pivot for efficient and effective management of the continuum of the
records of an institution .... To preserve the continuum, the archivist needs to be involved in the
ongoing management of recorded information .... 4
A sense of the need for that involvement beginning with 'progress towards 'integrated current and ... intermediate'
records management has permeated successive generations of Australian archivists who, like Maclean, have
seen the system as the building block for integrated information management.
Consistent with this view is a rejection of a purely custodial approach to archival description. Although it would be
incorrect to say that Australian archivists have long anticipated all the current trends in post-custodial
documentation theory, we have eagerly embraced them because they fit so well our own long-standing
commitment to integrated records management.
Central to this commitment is the idea that records description must be capable of dealing with all records, at any
stage in the records continuum, not just an archival remnant which has passed out of current use. Classificatory
techniques focussing on 'holdings' which cannot practically be employed until, to paraphrase one of the system's
native critics, the 'archival dust has settled'5 are not suitable because they effectively place a barrier between the
archivist and the 'ongoing management of recorded information'.
Archival arrangements were formalised within the Commonwealth of Australia less than 50 years after its
formation. Apart from a few 'ancient' records inherited from the pre-federation colonies, the Archives dealt only
with recent records. Their holdings had all the characteristics of intermediate records : frequent transfers and
recalls, fluctuations in ownership, changes in provenance. The organisation could be unkindly characterised as 'a
collection of record centres in search of an archives' 6.
For obvious practical reasons, therefore, it was necessary to classify and describe records in a manner which
allowed for continuing and sometimes frequent changes in status (whether of location, arrangement and recordkeeping system, or provenance and control). There simply were no archives in the old-fashioned sense (a stable,
finite, physical body of records held outside the continuum) to be described. What developed was a system which
could be applied to any records, regardless of custody or location, from the moment of creation and throughout
the continuum, which would also reflect both past and future changes in status (provenance and control) and
record-keeping system.
Similar needs are now being recognised in the treatment of electronic records, but there was an older model to
look to for inspiration. In nineteenth century top-numbering and succeeding paper filing systems there was also a
loss of physicality which is 'documented' in associated registers and indexes7 (control records). Each record gets
a number which has no purpose other than identification. Associated records are not brought together physically
by author or subject. These links are found by consulting the control records. The control records also show
changes in physical arrangement (top-numbering) made during subsequent transactions and shifts in provenance
or control.
These top-numbering techniques, which evolved into annual-single number filing systems, provide the pattern for
the Australian system8. By applying sound records management practices, the system was able to document
ideas about records independently of the physical survival of the manifestations of those ideas9.
The meaning of archival information comes from knowledge of (ideas about) (1) where the information came from, when, and how it has been kept and maintained (knowledge of
record-keeping system)
(2) who acquired it, who kept it, who used it and their records-related activities (knowledge of
context).
We now see (in the light of our experience of electronic records) that information outlasts its associations with
context and record-keeping system. The system was developed to address earlier manifestations of this same
problem. Persons die and bequeath their records. Corporations change, evolve, merge and are abolished.
Functions and activities are born, develop, and die out. Record-keeping systems adapt and evolve, often in
response to contextual change. To paraphrase Scott on the problems of relating Series to Record Groups -
http://www.infotech.monash.edu.au/research/groups/rcrg/publications/chtrc1.html
2/16
2/13/2015
The Australian ('Series') System: An Exposition (Information Technology)
.... the central problem .... arises from the fact that the lifespan of the [record-keeping system] and that
of its [context] are not necessarily coextensive. 10
The system solved that problem by identifying and separately documenting (1) the processes for making, storing and accessing records and for maintaining the record-keeping
system (records control), and
(2) provenance and ownership as well as the larger organisational, familial, or social 'ambience' in
which records-creators, records-keepers, and records-users function (context control).
It is the completeness11 with which the system demands a separation of data into different descriptive entities for
record-keeping and context (and the concomitant process of establishing complex inter-relationships in the space
between them) - see Figure One - which distinguishes it from other systems.
Figure One
In the past, transmutations of record-keeping and context have occurred by slow, if inexorable, progression which
often left intact part at least of the physical evidence of the lost or mutated record-keeping systems and the
contextual associations of records the 'preservation' of which (through the unbroken chain of custody) has been
described as a primary archival duty. With electronic records, we now have a loss of physical evidence which is
practically simultaneous with records-creation. For records to have meaning, knowledge of record-keeping and
context must be able to survive when the physical characteristics which embody and evidence that knowledge do
not. The system provides a methodology for 'preserving' record-keeping and contextual associations by linking
archival information to documentary representations of record-keeping and context which no longer physically
exist (or will not survive) or which never had physical existence12. David Bearman, if I understand him correctly,
has called this process 'documenting documentation'13.
The world provides us with dozens (even hundreds) of possible descriptive entities to choose from14. The choice
is ours. A document, for example, is part of a file (containing numerous documents). Each document comprises
text made up of paragraphs, sentences, words, characters and may be of several formats (outgoing letter,
memorandum, incoming letter). Each file belongs to a series (or, successively, to several series) which is part of
a record-keeping system (or, successively, several record-keeping systems). Records are made by persons
or corporations, used by them, added to by them, owned by them, possessed by them, and controlled by them
(or their successors).
As we shall see, the system uses the accurate depiction of changing relationships between descriptive entities as
the preferred method for documenting record-keeping and context. This being so, the entities we choose to
document must be well conceived and consistently drawn15. Scott has given us the cogent and spirited
arguments which led Australian Archives (AA) to prefer the series. In the end, however, neither the series (nor any
other conceptually satisfactory descriptive entity) should be seen as the only possibility.
It is indeed 'simply wrong' if anyone supposes that the system has focussed on the series to the exclusion of
others. It is also bemusing because, within Australia, the most frequently voiced criticism of the system is that too
much effort is put into documenting context. Researchers complain that the volume and complexity of contextual
documentation raises barriers to getting at the records; archivists complain that it is wasteful to spend so much
time on administrative history and context at the expense of working on the records themselves.
http://www.infotech.monash.edu.au/research/groups/rcrg/publications/chtrc1.html
3/16
2/13/2015
The Australian ('Series') System: An Exposition (Information Technology)
Another misapprehension which may have arisen is that the descriptive entities in the literature (organisations,
groups, agencies, and series) - which are the primary points of data capture - are the only products of the system.
Once these entities and (critically) the relationships between them have been documented, compounds of the
data thus captured can be generated to produce 'descriptions' which look much like traditional finding aids The description of the twin separate but interconnected streams of agency description or biographical
note on the one hand and the series description on the other, permits a richer reconstruction of
provenance than many practices followed or proposed in North America. 16
Described by Scott as Inventories, in a pre-computerised environment these were manually compiled listings
aggregating data about one kind of relationship between descriptive entities : all the series created by the same
agency, for example, or all the series currently owned (or controlled) by the same agency.
In some respects, the system was born twenty years too early. Its practical applications still suffer from its precomputer genesis. Too often the outputs still look too much like the inputs. When it was devised, output was
generated by photocopying vast quantities of input documentation many times and then inter-filing the resulting
duplicates into various assortments. Only now are we truly beginning to conceptualise and generate outputs which
are products of the data captured and not just mis-shapen variants of it.
In the Public Record Office of Victoria (PROV), for example, registration documentation (input on descriptive
entities) has been for many years banished from the search rooms. It has been replaced by enhanced inventories
which draw together both context and records data into an integrated statement which bears no direct correlation
with any single input document. See Figure Six.
Entities and Their Attributes
Even where a relationship between record-keeping and context is stable (e.g. where records have only one
creator) the two are logically separate - otherwise the equally common case (records produced successively by
more than one creator) would be conceptually impossible. These differences must be observed when
documenting attributes. Thus, two date ranges which appear to be identical (creator : 1914-1953 and records :
1914-1953) in fact mean quite different things because the one represents the start and end of existence of a
records-creator whereas the other (covering the same span of years) dates the process of records-keeping. Each
attribute relates not just to a different descriptive entity, but to a different idea about each entity : beginning and
end of a records-creator, beginning and end of a process of records-creation. The fact that they are an identical
number of years is co-incidence; they could easily be (and often are) different.
In Scott's classic exposition of the system17, the two areas identified above were further subdivided. The context
area was divided into 'four basic elements' (entities) : organisation, agency, family, person18. Although the divide
between different kinds of context is not as clear cut as that between context and record-keeping, lower level
context entities had one characteristic that set them apart from the higher level entities to which they belonged viz. lower level entities create, maintain, use, control, or dispose of records, higher level ones do not.
In the 1966 outline, this was absolutely true. 'Organisations' and 'Families' are not records-creating entities. They
are descriptions of the administrative or familial structures or groupings to which records-creating entities
(agencies and persons) belong. Neither an organisation nor a family was ever shown in AA's application of the
system as the creator of records. After nearly thirty years, it is now much clearer that records-creation is only one
aspect of provenance. The system's early concentration on documenting successive phases in creation
introduced the idea of 'multiple-provenance'. To this was added a second kind of relationship : 'control' (to
describe ownership and disposition of a defunct agency's records by its successor). It is now clear that contextual
entities may be of very many different kinds and that the relationship each has with various records entities is
manifold. We are still thinking through (and in many ways only just beginning to realise) how much further ideas
about context and provenance must go beyond mere records-creation.
http://www.infotech.monash.edu.au/research/groups/rcrg/publications/chtrc1.html
4/16
2/13/2015
The Australian ('Series') System: An Exposition (Information Technology)
Figure Two
For the purposes of this discussion I have identified two different kinds of context entities : provenance (for
persons and corporations who create, maintain, use, control, or dispose of records) and ambience19 (for entities,
such as organisations and families, which associate provenance entities with administrative structures, families,
functional or juridical responsibilities). See Figure Two.
Separation, within the context area, of provenance and ambience is now a standard feature of the system.
Australian Archives groups provenance entities, within its largest ambient entity (the Commonwealth of Australia),
by a device. Each provenance entity is related to the central department(s) which was/were subject to the same
responsible minister (when showing a superior/subordinate relationship between two corporations, the superior
corporations acts as an ambient entity, not as a provenance entity). The Public Record Office of Victoria has gone
further and established portfolio-based ambient entities (waggishly called record groups)20 as a feature of their
application of the system, augmented by other 'groupings' of agencies such as municipalities, courts, hospitals.
AA's organisations and PROV's record groups are both essentially structural. They are based on and reflect the
identification and description of arrangements for the administration of the agencies which belong to them. Scott's
justification for ambient entities in his 1966 article21 was the existence within AA of records inherited from other
jurisdictions - hence the need to distinguish, within the archives of the Commonwealth of Australia, records of nonCommonwealth origin.
A manageable number of ambient entities is a simple convenience for any archival documentation programme
which has to deal with numerous provenance entities. At PROV, it was concluded that with up to 10,000
provenance entities (agencies), it would be convenient to have about 100-200 ambient entities (record groups) to
present a comprehensible picture of the whole structure being documented.
It is clear that for reasons of internal control and retrieval, small archival programmes may have no need for
ambience. An in-house archives in a small organisation may need only one ambient entity (or none). Indeed, it
appears that a majority of the system's users currently employ no ambient entity and use provenance entities
only22. When dealing with high level context, however, it is necessary to consider issues wider than the selfperceived needs of each archival programme.
'Department of Trade and Customs' means something as a provenance title within AA's documentation
programme. On a broader scale, however, it is meaningless. Victoria, in the 19th century, also had its Department
of Trade and Customs. As well as serving the internal needs of each archival documentation programme, it is
ambient entities, above all, which are crucial to the development of any national documentation programme.
Reference codes (CA 1234 for the Commonwealth Department and VA 9876 for the Victorian) are meaningless.
http://www.infotech.monash.edu.au/research/groups/rcrg/publications/chtrc1.html
5/16
2/13/2015
The Australian ('Series') System: An Exposition (Information Technology)
Such codes indicate who documented the provenance entity, not where it belongs administratively and (critically)
not whether it is the same as another documented entity with the same name. That can only be known by
associating each provenance entity with related provenance entities within its correct ambient entity(ies).
As part of any national plan for archival documentation, therefore, a desirable step will be the development of a
process for establishing and controlling ambient entities. I have argued elsewhere that it is the single most
important step in moving towards standardisation23. Nationally agreed ambient entities (and there is no reason
why they should not ultimately be global) could serve the purposes of standardisation and information exchange by
providing a universal context statement which no one programme can ever provide. Such a proposal, intelligently
conceived and resolutely executed, might put a characteristically antipodean spin on the notion of a 'total
archives'.
Even a small in-house programme, therefore, may need to provide for ambience - not to meet its internal needs
but as part of a national (or international) endeavour. In the meantime, each archives - at the upper reaches of the
context spectrum - has to make do with ambient entities of its own devising to meet its own perceived needs.
Where there is no structural unity to the provenance entities being documented, ambient entities based on
jurisdiction are possible. A collecting archives may divide provenance entities by type (e.g. unions, businesses).
Some of PROV's record groups are of this type.
I have recently suggested that functions may be the basis of another type of ambient entity24. Functions which are
treated, not simply as attributes of an entity or as the basis for a vocabulary of retrieval, but as ambient entities in
their own right must be related to other ambient, provenance, and record-keeping entities. They properly define
and differentiate jurisdictional responsibility and activity. The names of such entities when worked into a thesaurus
can, conceivably, provide access at any level and thus afford the nearest that archivists may ever get to something
like a subject approach - one which is based on provenance. At least two archives using the system (the Public
Record Office of Victoria and the City of Sydney) has begun experimenting with this.
Just as the context control area can be sub-divided, so can the record-keeping area. In his 1966 article, Scott
barely touched on this. He then divided record-keeping into series (which I shall call records entities for the
purposes of this model) and into items (e.g. files, volumes, cards), documents (e.g. folios in a file), and
'information'. These latter, which are extensively used to physically control records, I have called contents
entities25. See Figure Two.
Contents entities are typically used for physical transfer, accessioning, and repository control purposes.
Possibilities include :
a transfer (that portion of records which is uplifted as one);
an accession (that portion of records which is receipted as one);
a consignment (that portion of records which is treated as one26);
an item (that portion of records the record-keeping system creates as one);
and, more narrowly :
a document (each complete transactional record);
a folio (each physical membrane making up a document);
a paragraph (each block of text making up a document);
a word (each meaningful set of characters within a document);
a character (component parts of a word).
Non-physical categorisations (e.g. disposal class or access category27) are also possible and, when dealing with
electronic records, they will proliferate. In an electronic system, for example, each 'view' (i.e. that portion of the
data available for display in response to query) might be treated as a contents entity.
Precisely how an entity is defined and described will vary from application to application. The logic of the system
does not dictate which descriptive entities to use nor does it prescribe how entities should be defined. The model
developed here merely identifies broad categories of descriptive entities which any application of the system will
be likely to require. In any given application, archivists will need to build in their own rule base to 'bound' the
entities and determine their attributes for the purpose of data capture and subsequent use.
It will be seen, then, that the conceptual model itself imposes no hard and fast 'rules' about how descriptive entities
are defined and related. This must be worked into the rule base devised for each application. The model provides
a framework within which differing (and even conflicting) applications can be compared and evaluated. Such a
http://www.infotech.monash.edu.au/research/groups/rcrg/publications/chtrc1.html
6/16
2/13/2015
The Australian ('Series') System: An Exposition (Information Technology)
process of comparison and evaluation is the path, I believe, towards standardisation - along which we may be
able gradually to develop a rule base for common application of the system in several archives.
Choosing Which Entities to Document
Following current practice in the then Commonwealth Archives Office, Scott chose the record series as the
preferred descriptive entity for records and called the records-creating entity an agency. Scott's own writings deal
extensively with both series and agencies, arguing the case for a separation of records and context, the manner in
which they behave, and the style in which they should be documented.
In particular, Scott argued the respective merits of the series over broader or narrower alternatives. There is no
particular reason, however, why the conceptual model here described cannot be applied using different
descriptive entities so long as the basic methodology is observed. Use of the series as the preferred records
entity is not, in other words, essential when applying the system - hence my use here of 'Australian system' in
preference to 'series' system.
In a recent article28, David Bearman has argued the advantages of the record-keeping system as a preferred
focus for records control. Though Scott referred several times to the record-keeping system, he consistently
argued the strengths of the series as the preferred records entity. Without departing from the conceptual model,
archivists applying the system can thus build in their own rule base to 'bound' the entities and determine their
attributes for data capture. Either system or series (and possibly both) can be used in alternatives applications of
the method - see Figure Three.
In Option 1, the record-keeping system must be depicted by showing relationships between series belonging to
the same record-keeping system because the record-keeping system is not identified as a descriptive entity.
Alternatively, the record-keeping system is shown in Option 2 as an entity in which case series must be depicted
as attributes of (or as lower level entities below) the record-keeping system. Perhaps it is possible (though it
might not be worthwhile) to show both record-keeping system and series as entities (Option 3). Initial reaction
amongst some Australian practitioners has been to continue to prefer the series (Option 1) when dealing with
paper records, while keeping an open mind on Option 2 when dealing with electronic records.
Locating the records entity at the series level is not essential. This is not to say that it is a matter of indifference.
Debate over which to prefer and why lies at the heart of our professional life. The model is not designed to focus
on one right answer. In conceptual terms, both series and record-keeping system works because they both
consist entirely of record-keeping attributes, unlike Record Groups or Fonds which, by their nature, have attributes
drawn from context.
Figure Three
The more that another system follows the path of separating data about context from data about record-keeping
(even if it fails to use the series as its preferred descriptive entity) the closer it will be to the Australian system.
Logically, though there would be great practical difficulty in doing so, there is no reason why even high level
record-keeping entities such as the Fonds could not be employed provided data about context were separated
into a different entity : i.e. there would be two co-extensive entities - the record-keeping Fonds and the context
Fonds - neither of which could, of course, be expected to be physically complete when dealing with records of any
complexity.
http://www.infotech.monash.edu.au/research/groups/rcrg/publications/chtrc1.html
7/16
2/13/2015
The Australian ('Series') System: An Exposition (Information Technology)
As users of the system have become more familiar with its ways, they have become less concerned about
whether the entity being described is a 'true' series in the technical sense. Nowadays, several series may be
grouped together for convenience and documented as a single descriptive entity - provided they behave
collectively in the same manner as a single entity (series). We are now less concerned with whether the records
being described are in all cases a true series than with describing as a series any body of records which our
experience tells us will behave as a series would behave and would have the same kind of attributes29.
In the same way, there is room for debate over what constitutes a records-creating entity (agency). Are the
separate branches of a government department to be treated as records-creating agencies in their own right or
as component divisions of the parent agency? Long experience of applying the system has taught us that there is
no satisfactory answer to that question posed in that way. It will depend on a number of variables which alter
cases - chiefly whether the 'sub-agencies' had their own history, what administrative structures join each with its
parent(s), and what kinds of records each kept30.
The system does not provide answers to questions like : what is a series and what is an agency? Archivists
applying the system may develop different rules on these and like questions and still be operating within the
conceptual framework which the system provides.
Rules for establishing what is a series and what is an agency are necessarily still evolving. Australian practice is
based on the fairly narrow experience of a relatively small number of archives in this country, limited to
administration (chiefly government) and record-keeping inherited from the British and operating during the 19th
and 20th centuries. Common sense tells us there is much we don't know about how the system must be adapted if
it is to be applied to different experiences of human activity. Even our limited experience suggests that application
of the system in different environments will require substantial modifications to the precise rules which have so far
been developed here and currently govern our identification and description of entities. Growing overseas interest
in the system promises an exciting future in which its application to other records-making environments will throw
up problems with which we have not had to deal.
Application of the system to early nineteenth century administration reveals (not surprisingly) that the kind of
administrative structures used in the eighteenth century and the early 1800's follow a very different behaviour
pattern from late 19th century and 20th century administration. This requires changes to the rules developed for
dealing with context entities from the later period. No doubt, the opportunity (so far denied us) to deal with
mediaeval and non-European structures would necessitate even more radical revision of the rule base. Similar
issues arise from the challenge of documenting electronic records.
Maclean, Penny, and Scott did not discover the series. It was then, and remains, an element used in other
documentation systems. Using the series as a descriptive entity is not a defining (or even necessary)
characteristic of the system. This is why 'series system' is not a good name for it. A better hallmark is the use of at
least two descriptive entities : one on either side of the intersection between context and record-keeping. The
system, thus defined, meets the traditional requirements of archival description by making relationships across
that intersection (pre-eminently, between records and records-maker). As we adapt the system to new and less
familiar tasks to which, it seems likely, it will have to be applied, other kinds of entities and other kinds of
relationships are possible, even desirable.
These are important questions which pose significant challenges and will lead progressively to changes to the
way the system is applied. But the challenge (so far at any rate) has been to the application of the system - not to
the conceptual model itself. We may dispute the boundaries of the descriptive entities and their attributes. We
may quarrel over which entities to prefer. Those disputes occur within the framework of applying a methodology
which confirms every day the advantages of continuing to use different descriptive entities (whatever their makeup
may be) for context and record-keeping data.
Relationships
Some critics of the system suppose (wrongly) that the attributes of the larger 'lost' entities, ones which aggregate
characteristics of both records and provenance, are dispensed with. The answer to such critics is that those
attributes are not lost; they are preserved most lovingly at the very heart of the system. We call them relationships.
What, it may reasonably be asked, apart from an inordinate desire to break down structures into their component
parts, is the purpose of our analysis? As readers of Scott will understand, the analysis set out in Figure Two
represents a possible segmentation of data about record-keeping and context into descriptive entities which can
be used to document both records and context as they exist in a single moment of time. Figure Two represents a
'spatial' analysis of descriptive entities and their possible relationship to one another.
http://www.infotech.monash.edu.au/research/groups/rcrg/publications/chtrc1.html
8/16
2/13/2015
The Australian ('Series') System: An Exposition (Information Technology)
Figure Four
The other dynamic aspect of such relationships is that they exist also in time. Relationships between entities must
be shown in both space and time. In order to show changing relationships through time, it is necessary first to
document each phase in the changing relationship 'synchronically'31 - to use the term borrowed from linguistics
which Peter Scott (himself a trained linguist) preferred. As Scott pointed out in his 1966 article, it is the temporal
more than the spatial dimension which requires a break-down of data used to control context and record-keeping
into successive entities. For a diagrammatic representation of how temporal changes in relationships are
documented see Figure Four32 .
The power of the synchronic approach (and herein lies its chief advantage over the alternatives) is that it allows a
complex knot of relationships to be untangled by the simple device of documenting each set of relationships from
the point of view (successively) of a single descriptive entity. An accurate reconstruction of the original whole from
any point of view is then possible. The same result cannot be achieved by attempting to document relational
change within an entity.
Of each relationship, it is necessary to ask : how related and when related? It is data about the how and the when
of relationships that enables complex and detailed statements about record-keeping and context to be
(re)constructed. Other attributes (date, content, purpose) tell us little about contextual and record-keeping
qualities. By documenting relationships carefully, we are able to say more than it is possible to describe by merely
associating like entities in a common category or ascribing a common characteristic.
To put the matter at its simplest, it is the difference between being able to say that 'Jack and Jill are uncle and
niece'33 instead of 'Jack and Jill belong to the same family'34. Critics will reply that both are simple statements
and that the first can be made from the point of view of the family just as easily as from the point of view of Jack
and Jill independently. Suppose, however, that Jack and Jill became involved in the kind of murky matrimonial
tangles the Habsburgs undertook in the 17th century. Then, Jack and Jill might be successively uncle and niece : from 1660 to 1680
brother- and sister-in-law : from 1680 to 1683
husband and wife : from 1683 to 1689
deceased and widow : from 1689 to 1702.
This is to say nothing of the relationships each would have, by both blood and marriage, with other individuals, nor
with offices held. If Jack was King of Spain, then Jack and Jill were Rulers of Spain from 1683 to 1689, but the
Rulers of Spain from 1680 to 1689 were Jack, Jill, and Jill's sister. Complexity of this order is best depicted
synchronically.
http://www.infotech.monash.edu.au/research/groups/rcrg/publications/chtrc1.html
9/16
2/13/2015
The Australian ('Series') System: An Exposition (Information Technology)
Some archivists find refuge in the belief that while hapless colleagues must grapple with these complexities, 'my
archives' (a characteristically custodial phrase) are happily free of them. It is a delusion. Robinson Crusoe's
records might be that simple (though I think the proposition is debateable) but not many others. Unless you squint
and take a narrow, limited, parochial view, all archives belong to a complex, rich, and dense contextual
background - personal, social, organisational, national, and (ultimately) global - which most archival programmes
(including those in Australia) have not yet begun to document more than superficially.
Relationships Have Outcomes
In order to divert the pirates' unwelcome nuptial attentions away from his daughters, Major-General Stanley
appeals to their tender natures by claiming (falsely) to be an orphan. In the second Act, he is overtaken by
remorse Scene. A Ruined Chapel by Moonlight . . . General Stanley discovered seated pensively . . .
GEN. . . . I come here to humble myself before the tombs of my ancestors, and to implore their pardon for
having brought dishonour on the family escutcheon.
FRED. But you forget, sir, you only bought the property a year ago, and the stucco in your baronial hall is scarcely
dry.
GEN. Frederic, in this chapel are ancestors; you cannot deny that. With the estate, I bought the chapel and its
contents. I don't know whose ancestors they were, but I know whose ancestors they are, and I shudder to
think that their descendant by purchase (if I may so describe myself) should have brought disgrace upon
what, I have no doubt, was an unstained escutcheon. 35
As the General thus so aptly reminds us, it is impossible to be too nice when depicting relationships between
entities. Figure Five illustrates how relationships are documented at all levels of the system. No single application
is likely to utilise all of the logical possibilities which this model reveals because it will not be necessary in terms of
what it is trying to achieve (its 'functional requirements' 36) and because it would not be practical in terms of the
resources available to most of us. What the model provides is a conceptual framework within which particular
applications will document those attributes and relationships necessary to meet the information demands upon
it37.
I suspect that Peter Scott came to regret the use of the word 'abandonment' in his seminal 1966 article. He
sometimes spoke wistfully of how we had not lost the Fonds as critics supposed but recreated it 'on paper' using
our Inventories and other products of the system. Certainly the opening words of his series of articles (in
collaboration with others) from 1978 to 1981 indicate that by then he felt the need for a corrective statement As archivists we regard respect des fonds as one of our cardinal principles of arrangement. By this
we accept that records and archives derive much of their meaning and value from the administrative
(or other) context in which they were originally created; furthermore we maintain that preservation of
the association between archives and their original historic context is vital to a full and proper
understanding of the evidence and information which they contain. 38
It is the products of the system - combining data about related entities into a single statement - which provide 'the
full and proper understanding of the evidence
http://www.infotech.monash.edu.au/research/groups/rcrg/publications/chtrc1.html
10/16
2/13/2015
The Australian ('Series') System: An Exposition (Information Technology)
Figure Five
and information which [records] contain'. The attributes of an entity (and its relationships with other entities) are
contingent upon both its definition and the descriptive methods we apply; so it is important to choose useful
entities to document and to apply sound methodology. It is by accurately and faithfully depicting relationships 'from
the administrative (or other) context in which [records] were originally created' that we fulfil our great twin mandate
to maintain order and provenance. Good definition and sound methodology derive ultimately from understanding
the needs of users of archives (archivists, researchers, records-creators and owners, 'society' and, ultimately,
posterity). We hold that the 'cardinal principles of arrangement' represent our best endeavour to satisfy those
needs, through a process the objective of which is to construct a value-added representation of archives, by means of
strategic information capture and recording into carefully structured data and information access
systems, as a mechanism to satisfy the information needs of users .... 39
The system allows us to '(re)construct' almost any conceivable combination of data. Certainly, as Scott predicted,
http://www.infotech.monash.edu.au/research/groups/rcrg/publications/chtrc1.html
11/16
2/13/2015
The Australian ('Series') System: An Exposition (Information Technology)
it seems likely that any of the notions of Fonds currently being posited in the North American debate could have its
'Australian' counterpart - provided always that its component entities have been properly conceived and
accurately documented in accordance with correct archival principles. Any 'identified information need' can be
satisfied (if it is anticipated) by carefully structuring useful descriptive entities for capturing needed data and
utilising well conceived information access systems.
To return to the family relationships of Major-General Stanley, it will be seen that the system can be used to
produce not merely an Inventory of Descendants (Persons) for each family, but also additional and separate
Inventories of descendants by blood, by adoption, and (if need be) by purchase - to say nothing of Inventories of
sisters, cousins, aunts, etc. Data about a person may appear on as many Inventories as suit the circumstances of
the case without losing knowledge of the precise relationship between any two (or more) individuals. On this
principle, any entity which can be imagined or discerned (whichever you prefer) can be documented, using the
system, at least as completely - and we would say more accurately and unambiguously - than with any other
methodology.
Products of the system, it should be noted, do not have to follow the principle of data separation between context
and record-keeping. A Fonds, or any other product combining characteristics of both, can be generated from the
process of data collection thus far described. Strictly, since the system can be regarded as a kind of relational
data base, it has no 'products' - on the principle that a particular view of the data is created not upon capture but in
response to user query.
My colleague, Sue McKemmish 40, will describe, in her contribution to this volume, products of the system which
have been developed at the intersection of ambience and provenance. The best example of products which cross
the boundary between provenance and records is still the Inventory of Series (for an Agency) which remains the
staple of finding aids produced by archives using the system. An example is shown in Figure Six.
VA 618
Provenance
Entity :
Identity
(Name)
Provenance
Entity :
Attributes
(History
/Activity)
Department of Agriculture 1872-1985
Establishment and Functions
In 1872 the Department of Agriculture was established as a branch
of the Department of Crown Lands and Survey (VA 538). Its major
responsibilities at this time were the control of stock diseases, the
eradication of vegetation and vine diseases ... etc., etc., etc.
Provenance
Entity :
Identity
(Dates)
During the period 1873 to 1913 the Department of Agriculture was
at various times responsible for :
..............................
the Government Botanist/Herbarium 1873-74; 1903-13
..............................
From 1882 the Department of Agriculture was established in its
own right and ... etc., etc., etc.
Provenance
Entity :
Attributes
(Location of
Records)
Relationship :
Context to
Provenance
Location of Records
Some records have been transferred to the Public Record Office,
but holdings are patchy. See list below and List of Holdings 2nd ed
1985, section 3.2.0.
Historic Record Groups :
1872 - 1882 Lands VRG 18
1872 - 1985 Agriculture VRG 34
Functions Transferred From Previous Agencies :
Function
Year of Transfer
http://www.infotech.monash.edu.au/research/groups/rcrg/publications/chtrc1.html
From Agency
Context
Entity :
Identity
(name)
Context
12/16
2/13/2015
The Australian ('Series') System: An Exposition (Information Technology)
Agriculture
Herbarium
1872
1873
...................................
Animal
Protection
VA 475 Chief
Secretary's
Department
VA 475 Chief
Secretary's
Department
Entity :
Identity
(code)
VA 551 Ministry of
Conservation
1981
...................................
Relationship :
Provenance
to
Provenance
Functions Transferred to Subsequent Agencies :
Function Year of Transfer
Herbarium
1874
To Agency
VA 475 Chief Secretary's
Department
.....................................
Agriculture1985
VA 2649 Department of
Agriculture & Rural Affairs
Inventory of Series :
contents
series
date range
date range
Central Administration Correspondence Files
1888-c1964
c1911-1964
539 Units
Agriculture Division Correspondence Files
1906-1978
?1906-?1978
120 Units
..............................
Relationship :
Records
toProvenance
Provenance
Entity :
Identity
(name & code)
VPRS 10163
Open LAV
VPRS 3477
Open LAV
Records
Entity :
Identity &
Description
Figure Six
The archivist's skill lies in documenting the attributes and relationships necessary in order to permit views of the
data which satisfy user demand. One such view, of course, is the Fonds. The real test of the system's archival
integrity, in my opinion, insofar as that can be judged by its success in 'preserving' the Fonds, is not whether such
an entity is used for the purposes of data capture, still less whether such a thing is kept physically intact (even if
that were possible). The question is whether or not proper 'respect' is shown by designing a system which is
capable of generating a Fonds (i.e. a documentary representation of a Fonds) when called upon to do so41.
Perhaps this is why Australians are reluctant to be drawn into that great archival grail quest - The Search for the
Holy Fonds. Even if those who are questing find what they think they are looking for, it will be (in our terms) not an
end, but a beginning. As students of the grail legends will recall, it is a journey towards insight - not one of physical
discovery. The object of the search is not something to be unearthed and taken hold of. Seekers must develop in
themselves the power to see. When they do, they discover that the object of their quest was there all the time.
Even when a Fonds is defined (assuming one definition will do), the real quest remains - finding which attributes
and relationships to document (and how) so that it will materialise for us.
ENDNOTES
http://www.infotech.monash.edu.au/research/groups/rcrg/publications/chtrc1.html
13/16
2/13/2015
The Australian ('Series') System: An Exposition (Information Technology)
1. Ian Maclean, 'Peter Scott' Archives and Manuscripts (Vol.18, No.1, May 1990), pp.12-13.
2. Terry Cook '"Down Under" comes out on top [review of Keeping Archives II]', Archives and Manuscripts
(Vol.21, No.2) November, 1993. p.272
3. The model, fully developed in Figures Two and Five is adapted from the analysis used by Michael Cook and
others in their Manual of Archival Description (MAD - 1986 (with K. Grant) and 1989 (with M. Procter). The model
can, of course, be used for other systems. I use it here only to demonstrate features of the Australian system. See
also end-note 36 below.
4. Glenda Acland, 'Archivist : Keeper, Undertaker or Auditor : The challenge for traditional archival theory and
practice' in Keeping Data; papers from a workshop on appraising computer-based records Australian Society of
Archivists and the Australian Council of Archives, Sydney, 1991.
5. Gerald Fischer, 'Letting the archival dust settle : some remarks on the record group concept' Journal of the
Society of Archivists (Vol.4, No.8) October 1973.
6. Quoted (anonymously) in W. Kaye Lamb, Development of the National Archives . . . Sept 1973
Commonwealth of Australia, Parliamentary Paper No.16 (1974), p.17.
7. Typically, incoming documents are registered and 'docketed' - i.e. folded from top to bottom, tied up in red
tape, and filed in a pigeon hole with the registration number showing on the outside edge. When new papers
arrive, they too are registered and docketed. The 'previous papers' are then folded inside the new docket which
is filed under the new number. In one sense, the first (top-numbered) docket no longer exists physically because it
is now filed with later papers under the new number. It continues to exist logically, however, within the system
because the original index and registration entries (showing the new number and usually summarising the
contents) still exist.
8. P.J. Scott, G. Finlay, C. Smith, 'Archives and administrative change : some methods and approaches (part 4)
Archives and Manuscripts (Vol.8, No.2) December 1980, p.61.
9. P.J. Scott, 'Archives and administrative change : some methods and approaches (part 5) Archives and
Manuscripts, (Vol.9, No.1) September 1981, pp.3-6.
10. Peter J. Scott, 'The record group concept : a case for abandonment', American Archivist (Vol.29, No.4)
October 1966, pp.495-496.
11. 'From applying such measures to existing multiple-provenance series, it was then but a short step to extend
the approach to all series, both to those that were single provenance, to those that were already multipleprovenance and to these [sic] that were potentially multiple-provenance . . .' Peter Scott, Gail Finlay, Clive Smith,
'Archives and administrative change : . . . (part 4)', p.58.
12. Descriptive entities are most easily understood as documentary representations of physical entities (the
description of a file or volume). It is arguable, however, that some entities (and those the most important), such as
organisational structure (provenance), function (jurisdiction or competence) and activity, indeed most contextual
entities and record-keeping systems (as distinct from their physical components and products), do not (and never
have) existed physically. See also end-note 14.
13. David Bearman 'Documenting Documentation' Archivaria 34 (Summer, 1992), pp.33-49.
14. As to whether the world really does provide us with our descriptive entities - whether they can, or should,
exactly correspond to ('describe') things which actually exist in the real-world - is, of course, a matter of debate.
For my purpose here, which is to model how the system handles descriptive entities, it is not necessary to have a
view on this. See also end-note 12.
15. 'Those things are called relative, which, being either said to be of something else or related to something else,
are explained by reference to that other thing. For instance, the word 'superior' is explained by reference to
something else, for it is superiority over something else that is meant . . . So it is with everything else of this kind .
. . The significance of all these is explained by a reference to something else and in no other way . . . Those terms,
then, are called relative, the nature of which is explained by reference to something else, the preposition 'of' or
some other preposition being used to indicate the relation . . . Sometimes, however, reciprocity of correlation
does not appear to exist. This comes about when a blunder is made, and that to which the relative is related is not
accurately stated . . . If . . . the statement is made accurate, the connexion will be reciprocal . . . All relatives, then, if
properly defined, have a correlative. I add this condition because, if that to which they are related is stated as
haphazard and not accurately, the two are not found to be interdependent . . . if, of two correlatives, one is not
correctly termed, then, when all other attributes are removed and that alone is left in virtue of which it was stated to
be correlative, the stated correlation will be found to have disappeared . . . Thus it is essential that the correlated
terms should be exactly designated . . . When the terminology is thus correct, it is evident that all correlatives are
interdependent. Aristotle, Organon (Categoriae) tr. E.M.Edghill ch.7 (Relation) 6a 36 - 7b 14.
16. Terry Cook, "'Down under' comes out on top . . .', p.272.
17. Peter J. Scott, 'The Record Group Concept . . .', pp.493-504.
18. ibid., p.501
19. I can think of no more satisfactory term to describe that area of context which does not deal with provenance.
20. Helen Smith and Chris Hurley, 'Developments in computerised documentation systems at the Public Record
Office, Victoria' Archives and Manuscripts (Vol.17, No.2) November 1989, especially pp.167-169. Victoria's
http://www.infotech.monash.edu.au/research/groups/rcrg/publications/chtrc1.html
14/16
2/13/2015
The Australian ('Series') System: An Exposition (Information Technology)
'Record Groups' are so-named jokingly. Although they come in at somewhere like the same level of
documentation activity as Groups or Fonds, they are characteristically Australian entities because they contain
only data about context, no data about records. Unfortunately (and surprisingly), quite a number of people don't
see the joke - a salutary reminder that humour and professional dignity do not mix.
21. P.J. Scott, 'The Record Group Concept . . .', pp. 500-501.
22. Australian Archives, CRS Review Report (November, 1993) part 13.4 and Table 16.
23. C. Hurley, 'Standardisation 1987 : a recapitulation' Archives and Manuscripts (vol 18, No 1) May 1990,
especially p.72.
24. C. Hurley, 'What, if anything, is a function?' Archives and Manuscripts (Vol 21, No 2) November 1993,
pp.208-220. Careful readers will also have noted that in this article the wheel has come full circle and that I am
positing the creation of an entity which combines both context and records data. It should be noted, however, that
such an entity, if it is ever used, will be a product of data captured using traditional Australian entities which would
begin, at the data capture stage, by rigorously separating the data.
25. It should be noted, however, that 'items' as described by Scott are not truly contents entities. They are
described on an Inventory of Items for each series but they do not exist as descriptive entities in their own right.
The Inventory of Items is merely an extension of the description of a series, the whole of the data on all of the items
being no more than a long-winded description of attributes of the series. To be a true contents entity, an item
needs to be documented and then related to a series. Most applications do not yet deal with data on items in this
way - except for AA's ANGAM II whose coverage at this level is partial.
26. A consignment may be housed intellectually rather than physically - i.e. each item may be controlled by a
common consignment code regardless of physical location.
27. A disposal class or access category may, of course, also operate as a supra-records entity. See also P.J.
Scott, C.D. Smith and G. Finlay, 'Archives and administrative change : . . . (part 3)', pp.41-43.
28. David Bearman, 'Record keeping systems' Archivaria 36 (Autumn, 1993), pp.16-36.
29. It should be pointed out, however, that so far as I am aware most practitioners of the system of would still use
true series most of the time.
30. See Peter Scott, Gail Finlay, Clive Smith. 'Archives and administrative change : some methods and
approaches (part 3) Archives and Manuscripts (Vol 18, No 1) June 1980, pp.46-51 for the traditional AA view.
31. synchronic a. Describing a subject (esp. a language) as it exists at one point in time (opp. diachronic);
hence ~ICALLY adv. [f. LL synchronus (see SYNCHRONOUS) + -IC] The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current
English (6th ed.)
32. For an indication of the types and variety of relational changes see P.J. Scott, C.D. Smith and G. Finlay, 'Archives and administrative change : some methods and approaches (part
2) Archives and Manuscripts (Vol.7, No.4) April 1979, pp.152-159.
33. Three relationships : Jack¨Jill; Jack¨Family; Jill¨Family.
34. Two relationships : Jack¨Family; Jill¨Family.
35. W.S. Gilbert, The Pirates of Penzance (1880) Act II.
36. David Bearman, 'Record-Keeping Systems', pp.27-32.
37. See also end-note 3, above. It is a measure of how little conceptual thinking has gone on in Australia postScott that, even now, it is not clear how those ideas currently in the news (e.g. functions, activities, transactions)
should fit into the system. Australian archivists, like their colleagues overseas, have fairly mature ideas about
records and provenance. Outside of those areas, in what I have called ambience and contents, there is much
more conceptual thinking to be done. The system was considerably in advance of its time, but it needs to be kept
up-to-date.
38. P.J. Scott and G. Finlay, 'Archives and Administrative Change : Some Methods and Approaches (Part I)
Archives and Manuscripts (Vol.7, No.3) August 1978, p.115.
39. David Bearman, 'Documenting Documentation', p.34.
40. This article has benefited (as do most things) from Sue's input, and I take this opportunity of thanking her for it.
41. 'In fact, this approach enhances the concept of the fonds and the sanctity of provenance : through it, the fonds
(or "whole') will emerge organically through the descriptive activity of archivists . . . The fonds, therefore, should be
viewed primarily as 'an intellectual construct'. Terry Cook, 'The concept of the archival fonds in the post-custodial
era : theory, problems and solutions' Archivaria 35 (Spring, 1993), p.33.
Terry comments, after reading this piece, that his argument - following Max Evans and David Bearman - indeed
supports the view that 'the fonds is not a physical thing, but a conceptual entity, that must emerge from the
relationships . . . amongst separated creators and records descriptions, rather than one fixed grand total of
information locked in time'.
Back to top
Copyright © 2015 Monash University ABN 12 377 614 012 – Caution – CRICOS Provider Number: 00008C
Request an IT or web
Last updated: 23 November 2012 – Maintained by eSolutions Service Desk – Privacy – Accessibility information
service
http://www.infotech.monash.edu.au/research/groups/rcrg/publications/chtrc1.html
15/16
2/13/2015
The Australian ('Series') System: An Exposition (Information Technology)
http://www.infotech.monash.edu.au/research/groups/rcrg/publications/chtrc1.html
16/16